


Choices Made in Agony

by writerdragonfly



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Developing Relationship, Family Secrets, M/M, Twins, Vaguely Post 02x03 (The Flash), Vaguely Post Season 5 (Hawaii Five-0)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-02 00:35:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5227127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerdragonfly/pseuds/writerdragonfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every family has secrets. Even Danny’s.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One: Danny

**Author's Note:**

> Do not take me seriously. I have _no_ idea what I'm doing here. *hand waves over proper prison visitor procedure.*
> 
> This is _not_ edited, fair warning.

He's known about them since he was sixteen.  
  
He doesn't remember what persuaded her to tell him, and in the end, it hardly mattered.  
  
For most of his sixteen years, he'd been the oldest one. Matthew, Lauren, Samantha--they're all younger than he is.  
  
But then his mother tells him about his older half brother, and about his twin sister.  
  
About his biological father.  
  
But he doesn't try and find them. Not then. There's no point. And, even if he found them... there was always the chance that his biological father could take him away.  
  
So he doesn't look, not then.  
  
-x-  
  
It's easy to not think about it. By the time he graduates high school, he's got a part time job to help support the family and plans to attend the police academy.  
  
So he doesn't look then.  
  
He doesn't think about it much in the years that follow either, too caught up in casework and...  
  
And then he has to make a decision about Rick Peterson, and finally does it. He looks up Lewis Snart in Central City, Missouri on his work computer.  
  
And discovers that Lewis Snart was a detective. That he had two kids--just like his mother said.  
  
And that he was in prison for murder.  
  
Making the decision to testify against Peterson doesn't seem too difficult anymore.  
  
That night, he gets utterly and totally drunk.  
  
-x-  
  
He doesn't look for his siblings until the summer of 2002. Grace is a tiny little human, and he's a dad and it seems so wild and incredible.  
  
And he wants to know if they... If they're like him or like their father. If they'd want to get to know him.  
  
He finds Leonard easily. His record, anyway.  
  
He doesn't look for Lisa's.  
  
He's afraid to.  
  
-x-  
  
He doesn't look for them again for more than ten years.  
  
-x-  
  
He's enjoying a couple steaks with Steve a few months after Melissa breaks up with him when his mom calls unexpectedly.  
  
And she's crying.  
"Oh, Daniel, I just heard..."  
  
"What's wrong, Ma?" Danny asks and Steve immediately gets that look, and it's all Danny has to keep Steve from sharpening his knives right then and there. Metaphorically, anyway.  
  
"Your brother, Danny," his mom starts, and Danny's blood runs cold.  
  
"What about Matty, Ma--"  
  
"No," she interrupts, "Your older brother... Lenny."  
  
"My older--Ma, I thought you said you didn't talk to him."  
  
"He was arrested a few hours ago. Made national news. Something about some guy in a red suit. But Danny, he was arrested for killing his father."  
  
-x-  
  
Danny throws his cell phone against the wall once his mom finally hangs up. It doesn't break apart--the screen might've busted, but Danny isn't close enough to check that. He doesn't want to.  
  
He's pissed and angry and sad.  
  
He's never known his father. Never known his two older siblings. Never bothered to look after that cursory glance at Leonard Snart's list of felonies.  
  
He barely knows anything about that part of his family, but he does know this.  
  
His mother was terrified of Lewis Snart. Terrified enough to take Danny and run, even though it meant that she had to leave his siblings behind.  
  
He knows that's his mother's biggest regret, leaving them. That she's beat herself up over it for years.  
  
But she hadn't had a choice and she hates that she ever stayed long enough for that to be true.  
  
-x-  
  
He tells Steve everything he knows that night, and drinks too much. He falls asleep on Steve's couch and the man covers him up with a blanket and doesn't wake him when he gets up, even though they're due at work at eight.  
  
"I called us in. Five-0 is gonna handle the day without us."  
  
"Us?"  
  
"You think I'm going to leave you alone right now, Danno?"  
  
And Steve doesn't. He's there for everything that Danny needs.  
  
Including the extensive Internet search just after noon that results in Danny being incredibly fucking confused.  
  
"I swear to god, Steve. He had a fucking record. I never woulda stopped looking into them if there wasn't one."  
  
"I believe you, Danny. We can have Chin look into it..."  
  
"No... It's not that, that I don't want to tell Chin, it's just..."  
  
"Danny, I get it. Don't worry about it."  
  
-x-  
  
For a while after that, they go on like nothing is wrong.  
  
And then Danny breaks. Danny breaks because there's a case and a battered wife with an infant kid and it's too much.  
  
Steve takes a week's vacation to go with Danny's forced one and Grace and Charlie are with Rachel for the first part of winter break anyway, so it's easy to just _do_ it.  
  
Steve buys the tickets himself, two tickets to  the mainland, another two to skip over to Missouri.  
  
He thinks about buying a set to drop them off in New Jersey too, but he's not sure.  
  
How Danny will feel.  
  
-x-  
  
Danny is pissed off that Steve made the decision without him, but he packs anyway. He packs anyway, and he complains like nothing is wrong and everything is okay and nothing hurts.  
  
Until they pull into the Iron Heights parking lot where Danny manages to panic so much that the only thing Steve can think to do to calm him is to kiss him.  
  
Which works, even if it makes Danny go off on a rant about how first kisses are supposed to be special.  
  
The warden grants them a visit, agrees to let them in a private room provided they don't mind the conversation being recorded.  
  
Danny wants to disagree. So does Steve.  
  
In the end, they agree to a police presence. The Central City Police Department agrees to send over a cop, and Steve looks up the detective's record on his phone while Danny introduces himself.  
  
"Why is the Honolulu Police Department interested in Snart?" Detective West asks while they wait for Leonard Snart to be brought in. Steve nods in Danny's direction, shaking his phone a little to let Danny know he looks good.  
  
"They're not," is all Danny says before Leonard Snart is being led inside.  
  
No one talks until the guard leaves the room.  
  
"Come to badger me again, Detective West?" Snart says with a smirk.  
  
"Just pretend I'm not here, Snart. This is their show, not mine."  
  
Snart's face flickers in confusion before he stares them down.  
  
"Let me guess, Jersey boy looking to pin a crime--"  
  
"Do you remember a woman named Clara Reed?" Danny asks instead.  
  
"'Fraid not, Detective. Doesn't ring a bell. You think I killed her, too?"  
  
"No, she's very much alive. Living in New Jersey with her husband. But she remembers you."  
  
"I'm sure--"  
  
Danny snaps his finger, interrupting him, "Melanie. Do you remember a woman named Melanie?"  
  
"There were a lot of women--"  
  
"She left your father in 1977. You were five years old. Your sister was a baby."  
  
"What about her? You think I know what my father did with her body, is that it?"  
  
"No. Like I said, she's not dead."  
  
Leonard looks incredibly flustered then. Like his world was rearranged. It takes a beat longer than the rest of his reactions before he manages to steel his face into cold indifference again.  
  
"Then why, pray tell, are you asking about her?"  
  
"Do you remember your brother? Lisa's twin." Danny asks, and it's Detective West who reacts to that.  
  
"There's a brother?"  It's obvious that he doesn't mean to say it out loud.  
  
Danny takes a moment, and after Steve gently bumps his leg against his, he speaks again.  
  
"Yeah, there is."  
  
And Leonard gets it then. Danny can read it in his eyes as it all clicks into place.  
  
"Levi."  
  
"Was that my name?" Danny manages after a pause, and he could honestly say he doesn't know what's going on anywhere else in the room other than between him and Leonard right then.  
  
"It was. He told us you were dead."  
  
"I'm sorry," Danny says. And he means it. Even though he doesn't know this man, he means it.  
  
"She changed your name? When she took off?"  
  
"She did."  
  
It's silent for a long moment. Danny doesn't know what to say. He's still not sure why he's there.  
  
"Your name... What is it?"  
  
"Daniel Williams. Danny."  
  
"Lisa will want to meet you, Detective Williams," Leonard says, and it feels like an end to the conversation.  
  
-x-  
  
Detective West follows them out to their car.  
  
"There isn't any record of a Levi Snart."  
  
"I wouldn't know."  
  
"Who are you, really?"  
  
"I'm Detective Sergeant Daniel Williams. That's the only name I've ever known. I have... had three younger siblings and I have two kids. You need to know anything else, Detective West? Or are you done--"  
  
"Danno, it's okay. Calm down--"  
  
"Don't you tell me to calm--"  
  
"Danny! It's okay!"  
  
"Damn it, Steve! It's not okay! Two of them, Steve. Two of my... It's not okay."  
  
"Danny, everything is going to be okay. Why don't you call and talk to Gracie and Charlie? I'll talk to Detective West, and then we can go do something else."  
  
Danny finally relents.  
  
He doesn't hear the conversation that happens, but Detective West apologizes before they leave.  
  
-x-  
  
Danny slips out of the hotel while Steve is on his run. He takes their rental car to the prison and waits to see Leonard in one of the regular viewing rooms, black plastic phone and all.  
  
"You came back."  
  
"You're my brother."  
  
"Yes, we established that yesterday."  
  
"I didn't know you existed until I was sixteen.   Ma just sat me down one day and told me that I had an older brother and a twin sister, that my dad wasn't my dad..."  
  
"And suddenly you weren't an only child?"  
  
"No, suddenly I wasn't the oldest. I... had a younger brother. I've got two little sisters too."  
  
"And what, your baby brother died and you decided to seek me out?"  
  
"I looked you up once. After my daughter was born. You had a sheet the size’a my arm. But now you don't. Why is that?"  
  
"So what, you saw my record and decided I wasn't worth knowing? That's cold."  
  
Leonard's mouth twitches into a smirk around the word cold. Danny doesn't get it.  
  
"I got scared. Happens, ya know. I had a newborn at home. I was already getting some shit after I testified against my training officer."  
  
"Testified... You reported a dirty cop. Didn't want anyone to know your secret."  
  
"And somehow you got someone to what, erase yours?"  
  
"Made a deal with the good guys. Does that really surprise you?"  
  
"I don't know you well enough to be surprised, Snart," Danny says.  
  
"Len," his brother says. And Danny feels a little like smiling.  
  
"Len," Danny says, with a little nod. There's a moment of silence, and then he asks, "Why did you do it?"  
  
"The deal? Or Lewis Snart?"  
  
"Why'd you kill him?"  
  
"He didn't deserve to live."  
  
Danny didn't know what to say after that. He's not entirely sure he disagrees, from what his mother has said and from what his record reads.  
  
And it's not as if Danny's hands are clean.  
  
"Detective Williams, Snart's regular Tuesday morning visitor is here. We don't normally allow two visitors--"  
  
"It's okay. I know I wasn't expected. I can leave," Danny says to the guard. He doesn't know who is here to visit, doesn't think it matters.  
  
Len had a life before this. Danny has to remember that, even if Len's here now.  
  
"I gotta go, you got a visitor. I'll be back tomorrow."  
  
"You don't have to come back."  
  
"Look, my brother Matty decided he'd rather run from the law instead of letting me help him and I got his body back in a barrel. I'm coming back tomorrow."  
  
Len doesn't say anything to that, just looks surprised and uneasy.  
  
"Oh, I didn't know anyone was talking to Snart," a young man says when Danny finally turns to leave. He's tall and skinny, and young.  
  
Danny wonders for a long moment, if he's young enough to be his nephew.  
  
"Don't worry about it, kid. You and him friends?"  
  
"You could say that," the kid says with a wry grin, before sitting down in Danny's vacated chair.  
  
Danny walks away.  
  
"Of course, I'm back, Snart.  I told you I would--"  
  
-x-  
  
Steve's not upset when he returns. Annoyed, perhaps. But not upset.  
  
"You go and see him again?"  
  
"Yeah. I asked him why he did it..."  
  
"Danny..."  
  
"I know, Steve."  
  
-x-  
  
"Detective West knows the most about the case. He generally deals with The Flash stuff."  
  
"The Flash stuff?"  
  
"Yeah. All the cases that have to do with The Flash or meta-humans. Captain Cold qualifies because..."  
  
-x-  
  
After they leave Captain Singh's office--somehow more confused than before they went into it--they stop by Detective West's desk only to be rerouted up to a lab.  
  
The cop that shows them the way flirts a bit with Steve, which annoys Danny and somehow goes unnoticed by Steve.  
  
When they reach the door, the cop flakes off and leaves them alone. Detective West sees them, effectively stopping whatever conversation he's having with someone Danny and Steve can't see from where they are.  
  
"Detective West, we were wondering if you could share some information about my brother's case."  
  
"I can't discuss the details of an ongoing case," West says. Danny's not surprised.  
  
"I just want to know if you really think he did it," Danny says.  
  
"What case?" A voice asks, and then Danny sees the kid from earlier in the morning step into his view. He's dressed the same, except wearing a CSI name badge on his shirt front.  
  
"Oh. You were the guy visiting Snart this morning."  
  
"So were you."  
  
"You were visiting Snart again?" West asks and it takes Danny a beat to realize he's asking the kid--not him.  
  
"Once, Joe. Just once. They're still not letting Lisa in, and she asked me to."  
  
Danny knows it's a lie. The once. The guard said it was his regular Tuesday visitor.  
  
He just doesn't know why.  
  
"You know Lisa?" Danny asks, interrupting whatever argument they're apparently having.  
  
"Yeah. Who are you?"  
  
"Detective Williams. This is my partner, Lieutenant Commander McGarrett," Danny introduces. The kid blinks.  
  
"Isn't that a military thing?"  
  
"Navy," Steve interjects.  
  
"I'd like to talk to Lisa Snart. Do you think you can set up a meeting for me, kid?"  
  
"Joe?"  
  
"Do it, Barry," West says. The kid nods.  
  
"Okay. But I don't think she's gonna wanna meet with a cop."  
  
"So don't tell her I'm a cop. Just tell her you saw me visiting her brother."  
  
-x-  
  
The bar is full of unsavory looking people. It's feels like a criminal hangout, and Danny and Steve definitely do not fit in.  
  
Danny knows who Lisa is as soon as she comes in, a scruffy looking man at her side.  
  
She looks a little like him, though he wouldn't guess them twins if he didn't know.  
  
But he still knows it's her.  
  
"You know, when I was asked to meet someone here, I really didn't expect a cop," she says, dropping sideways onto a chair.  
  
"I'm not here as a cop."  
  
"Oh, I figured that one out, pretty boy. I was reliably informed that you visited my brother this morning."  
  
"I did. I saw him yesterday too."  
  
"Really? Now that surprises me."  
  
"Danny." Steve says, and Danny gets it.  
  
"Look, I'm not comfortable talking about this here. You got a quiet place we can talk?"  
  
"You think I'm going to let you and your bodyguard anywhere near my home?"  
  
"I don't care where--"  
  
"Lisa."  
  
"Oh, fine. Meet us at STAR Labs."  
  
-x-  
  
There's a long haired kid waiting for them at the door, a tablet in his hands.  
  
"Detective Williams?" The kid asks, opening the door.  
  
"That'd be me."  
  
"Oh, I know," the kid says, lifting his tablet to show Danny's face from an old issue of a Honolulu paper on the screen.  
  
"Well, that's fantastic." Danny says sarcastically.  
  
"I had some warning you might be coming. Barry told me your name when he asked me to call Lisa earlier. Said you met him a few times today?"  
  
"The CSI?"  
  
"Yeah. He's a friend of mine. Cisco Ramon," the kid introduces. Danny and Steve shake his hand.  
  
"Steve McGarrett."  
  
He leads them into what looks like a staff lunch room, which is empty except for Lisa and her burly friend.  
  
After a few false starts, Danny finally manages to get it out.  
  
"I'm your brother."  
  
Lisa starts laughing alongside her companion.  
  
It doesn't last once she realizes he's being serious.  
  
"I only have one brother, and he ain't a cop."  
  
"Len said our father told him that me and our mother were dead."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Look I--"  
  
"Are you fucking joking? What gives you the fucking right to--"  
  
"I think he's telling the truth, Lisa," a voice interrupts. Ramon is standing in the doorway.  
  
-x-  
  
Danny and Steve leave shortly after, Lisa's phone number in Danny's phone and his in hers.  
  
He doesn't think she'll call.

He's not sure he would, in her place.

 


	2. Part Two: Lisa

 

When she's getting ready, she thinks about rule zero.  
  
You can use your body to your advantage however you want, but unless you want them to touch you don't let them touch you, unless you want them to kiss you don't let them kiss you, unless you want them don't let them have you.  
  
Rule Zero.  
  
Hah, it's really her only rule anymore.  
  
It's not like one of Dad's lessons. Not even close. He would never tell her to respect herself like that. Would never let her if he knew.  
  
No, she'd learned that particular lesson when she was fourteen years old and Len had already been spending the night in jail.  
  
Out of all the things Dad tried to teach her, of all the things she learned by the desire to do the complete fucking opposite, that's the one thing she absolutely refused to listen to him on.  
  
It's her fucking body and she'll do whatever the hell she wants with it.  
  
She just wishes she'd listened to Len before Dad tried to teach her otherwise.  
  
She slides the soft stick over her lips one last time, and grins wickedly at the color shimmering there.  
  
It's her fucking body, and regardless of what this guy wants to tell her, she'll do whatever she wants with it.  
  
-x-  
  
She runs into Mick a few blocks away from Saints and Sinners and it feels like it was meant to be. Not her and Mick, god no. But she convinces him to act as bodyguard with a little pouting and the promise of the perfect abandoned house on the other side of the city to burn down.  
  
It's not hard to pick out who she's there to meet. The guys in the back? They're all regulars. No, there's a cop sitting with a sinfully attractive dude just inside the fucking door. The guy with him is probably a cop too, Lisa wouldn't be surprised, but really the other dude hits like 90% of the stereotypes in one compact little package.  
  
"You know, when I was asked to meet someone here, I really didn't expect a cop," she says as she walks up, dropping into a chair without giving a shit what they think about it.  
  
"I'm not here as a cop," Cop says, and hah, she fucking called it.  
  
"Oh, I figured that one out, pretty boy. I was reliably informed that you visited my brother this morning." Which, true. Cisco told her as much when he talked her into actually meeting the guy.  
  
"I did. I saw him yesterday too," the cop tells her and for the first time she's actually surprised by something the guy's said.  
  
"Really? Now that surprises me."  
  
"Danny." the cop's friend says, and Lisa doesn't get it, but Cop--Danny apparently--obviously does.  
  
"Look, I'm not comfortable talking about this here. You got a quiet place we can talk?"  
  
Fuck no, "You think I'm going to let you and your bodyguard anywhere near my home?"  
  
"I don't care where--" Danny tries and before she can even manage a retort, Mick fucking interrupts.  
  
"Lisa."  
  
"Oh, fine. Meet us at STAR Labs."  
  
She doesn't bother waiting to hear his response, jumping out of the chair and slipping outside with Mick on her heels before she can get really pissed off.  
  
-x-  
  
"Cisco, what the fuck is up with this guy?" Lisa barks into the phone as she walks towards her car. Mick follows, occasionally growling at the string of drunk or drugged up guys that veer a little too close to her.  
  
"The cop? Nothing as far as I can tell. Barry didn't even know why he was talking to your brother, why did something happen?"  
  
"He's meeting us at STAR Labs. He wanted to talk in fucking private, Cisco."  
  
"I'll look into it. I'm still at the lab anyway. Text me when you're outside, I'll let you in."  
  
-x-  
  
The cop stumbles a few times before he finally gets it out, like he's not sure what the hell to say, "I'm your brother."  
  
She's not sure who laughs first, her or Mick, but they're both doing it pretty quickly after that.  
  
Not that they're laughing long, because she's pretty sure by the look on their faces, the cop is totally fucking serious in his belief.  
  
"I only have one brother, and he ain't a cop," she snaps, pissed off.  
  
"Len said our father told him that me and our mother were dead."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Look I--"  
  
"Are you fucking joking? What gives you the fucking right to--"  
  
"I think he's telling the truth, Lisa," Cisco interrupts and then he's holding up his tablet and showing her why he thinks so.  
  
-x-  
  
Lisa sits there and listens. She sits there and listens to this cop who's apparently her fraternal twin brother tell him what he knows about Clara Reed, about Melanie. About finding out about her, about Len.  
  
Lisa has no love for this woman, who left her and Len behind. She's never known her, never met her. She's a faceless woman who abandoned her, but apparently didn't abandon them _both_.  
  
One brother's a cop, the other's a con. She could've been happy, she could have been the one who was a cop for all she fucking knows.  
  
Why was he deserving of a chance when she was so obviously not?  
  
"I don't expect anything from you. I'd... I'd like to get to know you, but I... understand if you don't want anything to do with me, with any of us."  
  
"Us?" The question spills out of her mouth before she can stop it.  
  
"We have three... two younger sisters. Our brother... died."  
  
She feels a sorrow she hadn't expected at that.  
  
And a part of her wonders if those kids are the reason her mother never came back for her.  
  
"Look, it's getting late and I still have to call my daughter before she goes to bed. Why don't we exchange numbers, and you can call me if you want to talk? About anything. We... we don't have to talk about Ma, okay?"  
  
Lisa takes the phone being handed to her. It's an expensive model, not normal police issue. It makes her wonder.  
  
She types in her number, and hopes she's not making a mistake.  
  
"Can I ask you one last thing tonight, Danny?” Lisa asks.

 

“Anything.”

 

“What's your hot friend’s name?”

 

Danny laughs, “This lug is my partner, Steve McGarrett.”

 

-x-

 

She asks Mick to leave once Danny and McGarrett do. He hesitates, which is flattering and sweet, but she presses him and he does eventually leave.

 

She waits, manages ten silent minutes alone in the break room, before she breaks.

 

“Cisco?” She calls, and he's there quickly enough that she knows he was probably waiting just outside the door.

 

He pulls her into a hug, and he's soft and kind and sweet.

 

It's been a long time since she completely fell apart, since she cried loud and ugly and wet. She knows the use of tears, of carefully constructed sobs. This isn't that, can't be that.

 

She didn't cry when Cisco told her that her father was dead. Didn't cry when they refused to let her see Len in the prison. She almost broke when her father strapped her to a bomb, but she held on through the skin of her teeth and didn't do _this_.

 

But it hasn't been that long since almost, and it's been so long since she gave up on her mother taking her home.

 

It's been so long since that night when she was twelve years old and her father told her to stop fucking crying or she'd join her mom and Levi, since Len snuck into her bedroom once their dad was asleep and told her everything was going to be okay, that Mom and her twin brother were in Heaven and she wouldn't have to join them for a long time.

 

She's pissed and angry and she's so fucking sad. Everything hurts so much and she thought she could handle anything but she can't, couldn't.

 

But no one expects this, do they?

 

Ghosts from the past in technicolor, shades of a childhood given up.

 

She didn't always know about her twin brother. She hadn't learned about him outside vague comments and threats until she was twelve years old and sobbing as quiet as she could manage into her pillow because there was a cast on her arm and her father threatened her.

 

But she missed him, missed the idea of him. Someone who was supposed to be the other half of her. Someone who was supposed to share her life like they shared their time before it.

 

She missed him, and now he was here. He was here and he was real and how was she supposed to feel now? _What_ was she supposed to feel now?

 

“It's okay, Lisa,” Cisco whispers into her hair.

 

She wants to believe him, she truly does.

 

She just doesn't know if she can.

 

-x-

 

She doesn't remember falling asleep, but she wakes up on a cot in the medical wing. The lights are dimmed and she's covered in the softest blanket she's ever felt and she's alone.

 

She's always alone, isn't she?

 

Lisa doesn't know how long she's been awake but she knows it's been a while. She finally moves when her stomach stops constantly churning and finds her phone perched on an unplugged heart rate monitor beside the bed.

 

She has a text from Cisco, and it makes her feel a little less alone when she reads it.

 

[I’m down the hall. Let me know if you need me.]

 

-x-

 

She takes a shower at STAR Labs and lets Cisco give her a fresh set of clothes. She should go home, knows she should. But she doesn't. Caitlin, because after everything Lisa can't think of her as Doctor Snow, Caitlin takes a vial of blood when she gets in just after eight in the morning. She doesn't ask, doesn't ask Lisa anyway.

 

Lisa isn't sure she could tell her if she had.

 

The morning passes slowly, and Lisa remains steadfast in her lack of decision to leave.

 

She gets a text just after ten from Danny, and it makes her smile--just a little brittle thing, but a smile nonetheless.

 

[received: Stopping by Iron Heights again. Anything you want me to tell him?]

 

She almost doesn't respond.

 

[sent: Nothing he doesn't already know, but thanks.]

 

-x-

 

After lunch--a veritable buffet of Chinese food--Lisa thinks about going home again. She's about to say as much when Danny steps into the room she and Cisco are in, and she knows she's somehow glad she didn't.

 

“Hey,” he says, and it feels like so much more.

 

Maybe it is.

 

“Dr. Snow said the tests should be done before I leave.”

 

“Before you leave?” Lisa asks, because it didn't occur to her. It's stupid that it hadn't, of course he was leaving. Of course.

 

“Back to Hawaii.”

 

“You live in Hawaii?” Lisa asks, because honestly, she figured him for New Jersey cop, born and bred. Or, not born, she supposes. Not there.

 

“Yeah. I moved out there to stay close to Grace, but it's home now.”

 

“And Grace... is my niece?”

 

“Yeah, she's my little monkey. She's thirteen. Her brother, Charlie, is four.”

 

“I have a nephew too?”

 

“Two actually, our sister Lauren--she's two years younger than us--she has a son too, Eric. He’s just about done with college now.”

 

Leonard, Lisa, Levi... _Lauren_.

 

“You said... We had another sister?”

 

“Samantha. She’s twenty-eight now, the baby. We, uh, had a brother too. His name was Matt.”

 

“Had?”

 

“He got into some trouble... Didn't want my help... Tried to run, and he... didn't make it.”

 

Lisa swallows, wishes she knew what to say. She doesn't _know_ these people, hardly knows _Danny_.

 

“Look, I'm not expecting anything here, Lisa. I just... I didn't do enough for Matty, and I don't want you to think...”

 

“Was Matt an adult? When he died?”

 

Danny looks at her, blinks twice. His eyes are a little red, not that she blames him. Fucking family.

 

“Yeah.”

 

-x-

 

She meets Danny and his partner for dinner that night, a little hole in the wall restaurant with the best Italian she's found in the city. It's on the edge of mob territory, but she's not Len and it’s easy enough to hide in plain sight anyway.

 

“How long have you two been together?” Lisa asks, because she's curious. She hasn't seen many openly gay cops, and she's seen a fair few cops in her lifetime.

 

Her father would have shit bricks if he knew.

 

“We’ve been partners, what? Five years?” Danny answers, waving a hand in Steve’s direction.

 

“He's been a part of the task force just over five years.”

 

“So you're not out, back in Hawaii?”

 

Danny nearly chokes on his lasagna, but Steve just smirks.

 

“People have assumed we were married since practically our first case actually,” Steve tells her.

 

Which, okay. She usually had a fairly good grasp on this kind of thing, but she could have sworn they were together.

 

“Three days. He kissed me three days ago and we haven't even discussed it yet because he's a Neanderthal and resistant to talking about his feelings,” Danny blurts out, and he's a little flushed but Lisa’s pretty sure he's being honest about it at least.

 

“Well then, congratulations on being men?”

 

-x-

 

They're settling the bill--Lisa doesn't mind that he's willing to pay for her meal--when it just comes out.

 

“I want to meet her.”

 

Lisa doesn't even realize she's said it until Danny’s looking at her in surprise.

 

“You sure?”

 

No, she's not sure at all. She's still pissed off and angry and sad, actually.

 

But, she can't deny that she's wanted to meet her the entirety of her life. Even now, knowing... Knowing she was abandoned.

 

“Yes, I'm sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confession time~!
> 
> I still haven't seen any episodes with Lisa in them.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought about gifting this to dragdragdragon, but I realized yesterday that I do that a lot. <3


End file.
